Monitoring and Reporting Basics
Where history comes from
The console shows live question results; turning that into monitoring and reporting requires the right module - and an understanding of where history comes from.
Dashboards display panels built on saved questions and refresh on a schedule, so they show the current state, not a trend line. Trends is the module that stores sensor results over time, and it records only for sensors where trending has been explicitly enabled, and only from the moment it was enabled. You cannot backfill history. Reporting produces scheduled, distributable reports; Connect streams question or trend data to external systems such as a SIEM, ticketing platform, or data lake; and saved questions can themselves be scheduled so results are captured on a regular cadence instead of on demand.
Classic traps: assuming that asking a question every day creates history (it does not); assuming Trends can retroactively produce last quarter's chart (it cannot); and assuming a dashboard panel is an alert. An alert requires a defined threshold and a notification path, not just a visual on a dashboard.
Worked example: a stakeholder asks for 90 days of free-disk-space history. The correct answer is not 'I'll ask the question for 90 days.' It is: enable Trends on the disk-space sensor today, and in 90 days the chart exists - until then, scheduled saved questions plus exports are the only record you can produce.